A short film will win Wes Anderson that long-awaited Oscar

Wes Anderson has not been lucky at the Oscars, losing all seven of his races to date. But his luck looks like it will change this year with his Best Live Action Short contender “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar.” This 37-minute film, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, is one of four adaptations of Roald Dahl stories that Anderson made for Netflix;  the others are “Poison,” “The Ratcatcher,” and “The Swan.”

The other Oscar nominees are “The After” (Misan Harriman and Nicky Bentham), “Invincible” (Vincent René-Lortie and Samuel Caron), “Knight of Fortune” (Lasse Lyskjær Noer and Christian Norlyk), and “Red, White and Blue” (Nazrin Choudhury and Sara McFarlane).

While “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” is currently at the top of our Oscars odds chart, the shorts categories are notoriously hard to predict. Before we dive into his chances this year, let’s take a look back at his past seven races that have all ended in losses.

Anderson was first nominated in 2002 when he and Owen Wilson shared a Best Original Screenplay bid for “The Royal Tenenbaums.” They lost to Julian Fellowes, who won for “Gosford Park” while the other nominees were “Amélie” (Guillaume Laurant and Jean-Pierre Jeunet), “Memento” (Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan), and “Monster’s Ball” (Milo Addica and Will Rokos).

Anderson then picked up his second nomination in 2010, this time for the animated feature “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” his first foray into adapting the works of Roald Dahl. His fellow nominees were “Coraline” (Henry Selick), “The Princess and the Frog” (John Musker and Ron Clements), “The Secret of Kells” (Tomm Moore), and “Up” (Peter Docter), with the latter winning.

Anderson returned to the category of Best Original Screenplay in 2013 when he was nominated for “Moonrise Kingdom” with Roman Coppola. They were nominated alongside “Amour” (Michael Haneke), “Django Unchained” (Quentin Tarantino), “Flight” (John Gatins), and “Zero Dark Thirty” (Mark Boal). Tarantino emerged victorious.

Anderson then scored a hat trick of nominations in 2015 for “The Grand Budapest Hotel.” First, he was nominated for Best Original Screenplay again, this time alongside Hugo Guinness. They lost to “Birdman” (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, and Armando Bo) while “Boyhood” (Richard Linklater), “Foxcatcher” (E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman), and “Nightcrawler” (Dan Gilroy) were all also nominated.

Anderson earned his first Best Director nomination that year, too, alongside Iñárritu (“Birdman”), Bennett Miller (“Foxcatcher”), Morten Tyldum (“The Imitation Game”), and Linklater (“Boyhood”). It was Iñárritu and “Birdman” who beat Anderson again.

Anderson was also nominated for Best Picture as a producer for “The Grand Budapest Hotel” along with Scott Rudin, Steven Rales, and Jeremy Dawson. The other nominees were “American Sniper” (Clint Eastwood, Robert Lorenz, Andrew Lazar, Cooper, and Peter Morgan), “Boyhood” (Linklater and Cathleen Sutherland), “Selma” (Christian Colson, Oprah Winfrey, Dede Gardner, and Jeremy Kleiner), “The Imitation Game” (Nora Grossman, Ido Ostrowsky, and Teddy Schwarzman), “The Theory of Everything” (Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, and Anthony McCarten), and “Whiplash” (Jason Blum, Helen Estabrook, and David Lancaster). Iñárritu and “Birdman” beat Anderson and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” for the third time in the same night.

In 2019 Anderson, Rudin, Rales, and Dawson were nominated for the animated feature “Isle of Dogs” alongside “Incredibles 2” (Brad Bird, John Walker, and Nicole Paradis Grindle), “Mirai” (Mamoru Hosoda and Yûichirô Saitô), “Ralph Breaks the Internet” (Rich Moore, Phil Johnston, and Clark Spencer), and “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Phil Lord, and Christopher Miller). “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” leaving Anderson still without an Oscar after seven nominations.

But, surely, the narrative of one of Hollywood’s most distinctive filmmakers finally winning his first Academy Award will be too powerful for the majority of voters to resist? This is the ideal way to give Anderson an Oscar.

They don’t have to vote for him over a film they love or a director whose moment is right now (as is what happened in 2015 with Iñárritu and “Birdman”).  They don’t have to break the mold and award Anderson a huge category like Best Director for a comedy film.  They don’t have to sacrifice voting for another overdue artist they love as much as Anderson.

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